


More Hateful Than a Foe

by Nestra



Category: Justified
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-20
Updated: 2013-12-20
Packaged: 2018-01-05 05:46:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1090319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nestra/pseuds/Nestra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tim Gutterson tells a story or two.</p>
            </blockquote>





	More Hateful Than a Foe

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Maverick](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maverick/gifts).



> Thanks a ton to my betas. They know who they are.

You wanna know what's going on between Raylan and Boyd? That's not a simple question. How much time you got?

Sure, you can buy me a drink. Does it look like I'm going anywhere?

See, the thing about Raylan, he's one of those guys who spends all of his time lying to himself. It's like his goddamn full-time job. He says he didn't wanna come back to Kentucky. He says that he'd sell most of his family for a quarter and give back twenty cents in change. You think he couldn't move across the country and leave all of this behind if he really wanted to?

Exactly. It's the art of bullshit, and Raylan's a fucking master. He bullshits himself as much as anyone. And then there's Boyd, who might be the only asshole out there who could give Raylan a run for his money. Pass me those peanuts, will you?

They grew up together. That's the problem. Worse than brothers, worse than lovers, worse than enemies.

Do I think they ever did what? Nah, there ain't enough liquor in the world for that. Or if there is, I don't wanna know about it. And speaking of liquor--

Why, yes, I will have another one. And a shot of Jim Beam. I don't normally drink this much. Two, three times a week. Maybe more, if it's been a bad one. Anyway, back to Raylan and Boyd. Two asshole peas in a pod.

Grew up together, worked the mines together. Both of them got out, both of them came back. They're the same fucking person, except one of them's got a badge. 

What, you want some story? Trust me, I got stories about the two of them. We all do. There could be a goddamned club, and anyone who knows Raylan would be a member. Dues ten bucks a year, payable at the door.

This one time, we were tracking down a guy on a warrant from Texas. Three counts of possession with intent to distribute. Guy was hiding out with his mother, who lived in Corbin. Like we couldn't figure that out. How come there are so many dumb criminals?

Yeah, fair enough. Most everybody is dumb, so it goes to figure that most criminals would be dumb too. Criminals are just assholes who think they don't have to live by the same shitty rules as the rest of us. I get that, honestly. If I could get money and food and satellite TV without having to do anything for it, I'd go for that. But that's not the way it works for most people.

Right, anyway, this guy. Hiding out in the back bedroom while his mom stood at the door, pretending she had no idea what we were talking about. Leon? No, she hadn't seen Leon in something like three years, not since he went to Amarillo looking for work. That noise in the back? That was just the cat. It definitely wasn't Leon trying to fit his six-foot-two self through a half-sized window.

You can see where this is going, right?

By the time Raylan and I got around to the back of the house, Leon -- well, Leon was still stuck in the window, mostly due to the size of his ass. But enough of him was on the outside that he grabbed his gun and had it ready. I guess he thought that a weapon would scare us off and give him time to work himself free.

I mean, it worked in a sense, because Raylan and I spent about five minutes nearly pissing ourselves laughing. And let me tell you, Leon did not appreciate that. Every once and a while he'd let off a shot, but his range of motion was somewhat limited, what with being halfway out of a window.

No, I am not shitting you. And I swear to god, the next thing that happened was his mother trying to pull him back inside, and him screaming and kicking up a fuss, yelling that she was hurting him and that he had the goddamn situation under control.

Shit, you knocked over my beer. Nothing's that funny. Nah, it's fine. You don't have to -- well, if you insist, I won't say no.

Anyway, both Leon and his mom ended up in the handcuffs, but we had to take a detour to the hospital so he could get the splinters pried out of his ass. We dumped mom off at the local station to cool her heels while Raylan and I parked ourselves on those shitty waiting room chairs hospitals always have.

You'd think Leon might have already yelled himself hoarse, stuck in the window, but he had unexpected reserves once he found himself confronted with a large pair of tweezers. So to drown out the noise, Raylan starts telling me this story about how when he was in high school, he and some friends had snuck into an abandoned house to sit on a broken-down sofa and drink Coors.

They had no problem on the way in, but trying to climb back out of the window (did I mention they got in by breaking a window?), drunk and stoned, Raylan and one of the other guys tried to go through at the same time, neither one of 'em smart enough to back off and let the other one go first. It turned into something between a shoving match and a fistfight, both of them laughing loud enough to wake the neighbors. Of course, someone called the cops -- but that's not the point I'm trying to make.

The thing was, he didn't even know he was talking about Boyd. I'm not saying he forgot who he was with, but to him, it was just a story about dumb shit he and his friends pulled. The Boyd in that story, the Boyd he grew up with, is still the real Boyd to him. He sees Boyd the criminal, the drug pusher and the pimp, and he hates him. He genuinely fucking hates him. But if you ask me, not that anyone does--

Well, you're right. I guess you did ask me. I think Raylan hates him so much is because he took the place of the real Boyd. Raylan's Boyd. 

Look, Boyd is a smart motherfucker, even smarter than he lets on. And he knows that keeping Raylan off-balance works to his advantage. But if you want to know how much of it is an act, what you find if you dig down past the smiles and the chummy nostalgia for a shitty childhood...hell if I know.

Anyway, that's my side of it. Ask someone else, you'll get a different side, but I bet you it'll turn out to mean the same thing in the end. Ask me again, and I'll tell you it's not going to end until one of them's dead, or as good as. But you definitely didn't ask me that. That's just the liquor talking.

Yeah, you have a good night. Appreciate the drinks.

No, I'm gonna hang out here for a while. Maybe take that table in the back. I've done enough talking for one night.


End file.
